TLDR
Reducing the burn-rate of 20% to 5% and redirecting 15% towards Gas Monetisation for rewarding high-quality dApps, retaining talented creators and supporting network infrastructure.
Background
Social media platforms thrive through the success of their content creators, and the same can be said for a blockchain’s relationship with its dApps or builder base. Where web2 social media platforms optimize for ad revenue, high-quality dApps should optimize toward driving increased demand for block space.
The importance of giving back to content creators came to light recently with Twitter’s goal to beat Youtube’s ad revenue split with its leading channels.
Fantom’s Opera network is not directly competing against Youtube or Twitter, though it is competing to attract and retain high-grade talent continuously within the Web3 builders space in order to ensure a healthy and sustainable network.
This year, the network has been making strides in B2B support for its builders through increased foundation co-marketing, network upgrades (FVM rollout), access to funding (Gitcoin/Vault/VC Partners), events (London/Lisbon/NYC), and security (Watchdog).
The next phase of growth will implement the long-term monetisation tools necessary to create sticky network effects that attract builders and creators.
Affiliate Rewards
This proposal seeks to reduce the current burn rate from 20% to 5%, and redirect 15% of transaction fees to the creation of Affiliate Rewards.
How do we reward the high-quality creators on Fantom in a sustainable way using Affiliate Rewards?
We take what works in web2 and restructure it to fit the network’s priorities, which means taking the ad monetisation model and extending it to gas monetisation for performing dApps that manage to attract a steady stream of users.
This would be accomplished by splitting the gas fees paid to the network with the builder, at the proposed rate of 15%. Please note that this is subject to change and could increase/decrease in the future through a separate governance vote.
Requirements
Without standards or a comprehensive review process, gas monetization could incentivize spam, clunky dApps, and other gas extraction loopholes.
Therefore, a set of eligibility criteria will be reviewed and approved by the Fantom Foundation, akin to Youtube’s Minimum eligibility requirements for activating a channel’s monetization.
As noted in the current eligibility criteria forum, the requirements are as follows:
- Completed 1,000,000 or more transactions (Now reduced to 15,000**)
- 3 months (Now 1.5 months) or above spent on the Fantom Opera network
Please note, changes are expected around the criteria as the foundation learns more about the effectiveness of certain requirements. These changes will be made at the discretion of the Affiliate Reward keyholders (i.e the Fantom Foundation) based on advice from the community.
The gas monetization a dApp receives can be utilised at the discretion of the dApp, including functions such as payroll, token buy backs, R&D, and more.
Additional FTM
This structure generates additional FTM tokens in the Affiliate program which is not immediately redistributed. This could be generated by a new dApp that is just launching, spam transactions utilising gas, or other transactions not associated with Affiliate rewards.
This FTM will be used for the following purposes:
- Increased bonuses for performing Affiliate dApps
- Used for public good infrastructure subsidies (e.g. RPC providers)
- Donated to Gitcoin matching grants
- Donated to the Network Vault
- Sent to the burn address
- Rewards for successful content creators
Example
A project called X dApp launches on Fantom.
X dApp begins to get traction with an active community-base.
It passes the threshold of 1,000,000 transactions and stays for at least 3 months on the Fantom network. Then, X dApp completes the application for the Affiliate program, and the Foundation reviews and approves it.
X dApp is now eligible to claim up to 100% of the gas fees they contribute to the Affiliate Rewards (or 15% of the total spent gas on their dApp), with potential for bonuses (depending on the additional FTM amount).
Payments
Once the dApp is approved, funds from the Affiliate Rewards will be sent directly to the fee recipient via each transaction.
Cons
This initiative will slow the burn-rate of FTM by 75%.
Terms & Conditions
Affiliate Rewards is a prototype, the Fantom Foundation reserves the right to halt any payment stream indefinitely for any reason, including if fraudulent user activity is suspected or if the Foundation believes it is in the best interests of the Fantom ecosystem.
